Mentorship, Growing Your Employees, and Letting Them Leave

Welcome to Chefs Without Restaurants. I'm your host Chris. And this is the show where I usually speak to culinary entrepreneurs and people in the food and beverage industry who've taken a different route. Today I want to expand a little on something I posted on Instagram a week or so ago. Ray Delucci from Line Cook Thoughts had posed the question,"how do you motivate your staff in the food industry?" My response was to "find out what their goals are, where they see their path going, and then help them get there even if it means letting them move on." I know this is the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast, so many of you are solopreneurs and don't need a big kitchen team. But you could also be a chef working in corporate food service like I was, or for a company that's not a restaurant, so I thought this was still applicable. The show will be coming right up after a word from this week's sponsors. COVID has redefined the world of dining. 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If you actually speak to these people and find out what they want, you might find out that they're perfectly happy what they're doing. I've known plenty of people who are happy being aligned Cook, and not ever wanting to take on the extra responsibility of running a kitchen. And that's okay. But if you have someone who's working a position and they want to move up, what are you doing to help them get there? Are you having regular performance evaluations with your staff? Have you communicated with them what it'll take to get to the next level, I spent a lot of time working in corporate food service. So at most of those jobs, everyone had an eval at 90 days, and then every six months going forward. So I'm really happy that that was something that I got to do with my staff, because I know a lot of people work in restaurants or other operations and don't necessarily have that many sit down meetings with their superior to kind of touch base and see how things are going. I will admit that in my younger days, as a manager, I didn't always do the best job with this, I'd have a sous chef leave and a line cook would come in my office expressing interest in the position. Sometimes it would seemingly come from nowhere, the person didn't have the skills they needed from the position and had never shown any interest in it before. Obviously, there needs to be some ownership on the employee. If they're interested in moving up, they should make it known. But as a chef and leader, it's also your responsibility to find out where your staff sees himself going to have a one year, five year even 10 year plan. But also, if you don't have a position for that person to grow into, it really sucks. But sometimes you have to let a good person grow up and out of your establishment. I know staffing has been really tough, especially these days, it's all we're talking about. And if you've got an awesome employee, I know how hard it is to let them go. But if they're ready for that next step, being a leader and mentor means not only letting them go, but even maybe helping them get a job somewhere else. I had a boss who used to joke with me that I wasn't allowed to quit until after they retired. She said it jokingly but I think she really felt that way. Over the years I applied for a number of different positions within my company and for whatever reason I would never even get a call back for an interview. Part of me feels like my boss was squashing those opportunities internally because she knew how tough would be to fill my shoes. Maybe I sound like I have a big ego but I really do find it hard to believe I never got called for any of those interviews. But again, I haven't ownership on myself I'd become An executive chef and after being stagnant in a position for a while, I didn't see a future with my company. And I expressed this to the people above me. And they didn't really have any advice for me and didn't help me transition to a new position elsewhere. So I decided it was time to move on. So I just want to leave you with a couple of questions today. You can either use them for self reflection, or you can answer them in the comments wherever you see this post. Or, as always DM me at Chefs Without Restaurants on Instagram, or send me an email to chefs without restaurants@gmail.com. But going back to the original question, how do you motivate your staff in the food industry? What are you doing to help your staff grow professionally? And a much bigger question is What does mentorship look like these days? Did you have mentors? Do you think you're a good mentor? And where does the responsibility lie on the employee on the boss? A little both probably. I'll leave it there. I really do want to have this as a bigger conversation. And if someone wants to come on the show and talk about this at length, we can definitely do that. As always, thanks so much for listening, and have a great week. Go to chefs without restaurants.org To find our Facebook group, mailing list and check database. The community's free to join. You'll get gig opportunities, advice on building and growing your business and you'll never miss an episode of our podcast. Have a great week.